A Matter of Standards
by Archaeobee
Summary: James Norrington catches up with the Black Pearl six months after her reported sinking, and Elizabeth strikes a tainted bargain. ONESHOT JNES, WTES, POST DMC.


_A Matter of Standards  
_By Dream Descends

۞

"She sank."

"Well—to be sure, sir—though the agent's report was quite unclear as to how he came by the witnesses; evidently there were some flaws in the text—"

Admiral James Norrington turned on his heel to face the sputtering lieutenant, every fibre in his body taught with enraged disbelief. "Yes, evidently," he hissed, forcing the man back against the balustrade. "Seeing as she is floating quite successfully, at present, _above_ the water."

And so the _Black Pearl_ was, black sails full-bellied and arrogant in the robust late summer winds, a raw jetty stone against the blue horizon. She had been spotted mid-morning, sidling up alongside James's new command, the HMS _Penitence_, by noon, flying the starch white of ceasefire. Quite stupidly, the once-commodore berated himself, he had quickly ordered a matching flag to be raised and watched in stunned disapproval as their pursuer came nearer.

He was spouting the irritation of unexpected ignorance on his crew, of course—a collective of unfamiliar faces freshly pallid from English soil, only serving to remind him of the competent sailors he had left behind in the waters off Tripoli. Men he might have admired, respected, eventually seen promoted—dead and rotting beneath the placid waves of the Mediterranean.

Perhaps that was why, at the sight of the _Pearl_, an onyx demon gliding towards them, his heart had leapt joyously to the top of his throat, perching precariously above a lifeless void. His past could be rescued from that swiftly crumbling mountain of tight-packed morals, the unsteadying collapse of what he was into what he might be—_obedient_.

It was a wicked pleasure simply to see something of his old self again, an entity Cutler Beckett had been gradually purging with each casually malicious demand. Orders James had been swallowing with his own vomit now slipped cleanly from his mind, his pulse thrumming there and in the pit of his stomach, reaching into guarded caverns and summoning up one word—

_Standards._

To the bafflement of the officers around him, he laughed back in the present, more of a strangled gurgle than anything else, and barely recognizable as something meant to be humorous.

_What _standards?

More to stop the men around him from speaking than anything else, he snapped out orders. "Heave the _Penitence_ alongside her and prepare a boarding party—bring the captain and his associates to me, and set a watch to keep the _pirates_ on their side of the gangplank."

"The captain's associates, sir?" Lieutenant Something-Or-Other inquired blankly.

"I daresay he'll know of whom I speak," James replied grimly, waving a hand in dismissal. "Step to."

He settled one long aggressive stare on the lofty masts of the _Pearl_, willing it not to be a dream, ordering it silently to exist. He turned away and stepped into his cabin.

There was very little familiarity between him and the _Penitence_. She was a vessel shy of combat and carnage, something that made him dislike her from the start. He didn't want a coward for a flagship and she didn't want a soldier for a captain. And yet here he was, digging the heels of his palms into his desk, urging her to fight for him as she turned a placid fold of canvas and pushed him away.

That was how he received them, back turned, head sunk between his shoulders in unwelcome desperation, yearning for ships long sunk and buried—ships sturdy and resolute and _dauntless_.

"'_We require an armed escort'_ is not quite the message one is trying to send when flying a white flag, Admiral."

It was odd to see Sparrow flanking other people when under arrest. It implied that he might be working _with_ someone, which in any situation was astoundingly ridiculous. He stood as close to the door as he could without the officer manning him tugging on his arm, a distasteful eye regarding the shackles in the man's other hand.

James gazed at them all without speaking, hands behind his back and heels together. He tried to choke out a few pathetic words of greeting, feeling them being stuffed back down his throat before he could even taste them.

Perhaps a bit worse for wear, they were all that he had once known.

The pirate captain, hooded eyes never still, swaggering even as he stood motionless, clever fingers flexing subconsciously; Turner, straight and constant as ever, tense as coiled snake with a cold glass-like stare to match, hovering protectively behind the woman leading them all.

Every now and then, before this moment, he had tried to count back to the last time he had seen her—weeks, months, nearing half a year since she had stood there, tanned as leather and nearly as tough. A sword in one hand and his love in the other, she had brandished both in his face and called him mad.

Whatever dignity she had possessed as the governor's daughter had now multiplied tenfold. She stood like a man, feet apart, rooted stubbornly to the floor, as she was sure of every step. She blazed like a lioness; her sun-sweetened hair was tangled and tossed boldly over a pair of neat, thrown-back shoulders. She was dressed like a sailor, like any of the men on Jack Sparrow's ship, and could have perhaps passed for one if she didn't defy it with every breath and movement. She displayed her sex like a triumph, and a triumph it was. He remembered, with a spreading numbness, that he loved her.

And he found himself wishing for his obedience.

"To the brig with all of them." It was the only thing he could say without faltering, though the betrayed look Elizabeth Swann gave him as she was dragged from the room made him wonder how he had managed it at all.

۞

"The prisoner's requested an audience, sir."

James looked up from a paper he hadn't been reading. "Which one?" Outside, the sun was a ruddy orange, dithering on the fuzzy horizon.

The young soldier swallowed audibly. "The _woman_, sir."

"Don't blame him," Elizabeth said quickly, stepping into view just as he had been about to do exactly that. "I told him I was the daughter of the governor." James stared, open-mouthed, and she smiled weakly, her father in her eyes. "Though I failed to mention which one."

"You may go," James told his officer, who promptly fled, the door clicking shut behind him.

"I'm not going to ask you why," she said calmly, as soon as the man was gone. "And I've decided not to ask how, if only for the sake of preserving my good opinion of you."

The impact of hearing her voice had kept James immobile in his seat. At that, he rose, face flushed and stinging from the insult, and stepped around the chair to face her.

"What possible good can come from hanging us is beyond me, but—"

"You sentence yourself prematurely."

She narrowed her eyes, laughing humourlessly. "I sentence myself quite consciously, I promise you." She extended her right arm, the hand hanging limply as she held the appendage out before her, offering it to him.

He hesitated, and then, disgusted by his own cowardice, took two long steps forward and seized the slender limb roughly, tugging her sleeve up so hard it ripped.

A bright enflamed 'P' festering just above her wrist bone glowed up at him, fresh and throbbing. He let go as though burned himself, and she inclined her head in bitter self-righteousness.

"I fair no better with a brand than with a black spot," she said, surprisingly correct. "Beckett's lost us all once, James. This time we swing."

The strange bluntness of sailor's slang on her lips was unsettling. "You've not come here to solely to inspire my pity, have you?" He inquired callously. "I expected something a bit more cunning of Sparrow than that."

She glanced up sharply, watching him through her lashes. "This doesn't concern Jack—nor Will, or any other crewman." She moved, not necessarily closer, but suddenly he could feel her breath on his face. They stood already barely three feet apart.

"I've an offer for you."

"You've very little to bargain with, Miss Swann."

She brought her hands up and fingered the lapels of her jacket. "Perhaps," she agreed quietly, "But just enough." She tugged the garment off.

Her shirt had been unbuttoned almost entirely, only two or three little clasps still clinging desperately to worn white fabric. A long strip of bronzed skin, the small cleft of her navel, and the curve of two small breasts, faced him gallantly. It was bizarre that at this moment he should notice that she had combed her hair.

"Elizabeth," he whispered, mouth dry. His voice was hoarse, him having barely enough breath to form her entire name. His gaze lingered like a starving man on the exposed flesh, horrified, traveling slowly upwards to meet her bright amber eyes. For once, though they looked squarely back, there was panic there.

"My—my body," she started, clearing her throat and blinking often. "For their freedom."

"This wasn't what I wanted," he insisted clumsily. Even as he said it, she took his both his hands in her own—_her fingers were so gentle, so fragile_—and guided them to the cool expanse of her midriff.

She pushed his hot palms down her sides and onto her back, forcing him closer, and said directly into his ear, "Yes it was."

He moved back slightly, just enough to see her face, and see the fear so poorly hidden. Fear he would accept, or fear he wouldn't?

"Elizabeth." This time, it was a growl, grinding out in one great exhalation before he enfolded her properly in his arms and kissed her.

Stinging tears built up behind his closed eyes involuntarily. The shock of her hips pushing up against his, the roughness of her wide lips and the squeeze of her hands on his arms nearly made him sick with excitement, with disbelief. He was all at once utterly disgusted, ashamed, and thrilled at the feeling, his body wanting to cringe back and press forward simultaneously. He nearly tried to stop it, his muscles tensing up in readiness to fling her away—and somehow she sensed it, his reluctance passing through her, and she banished it with a hard bite to his lower lip.

"It's not me you should be worried about, Admiral," she said wickedly into his mouth, glancing up at him through her lashes. The teasing modesty was false as his title, so false she was lost to him. There was a moment where he only held a pirate, panting deliciously and unfamiliarly, urging him forward into her strangeness.

"Miss Swann—"

He said it only to draw her out, to find her again. She surfaced with a curious smile, eyeing him watchfully. "I'm not called that any more," she told him, holding his head as his mouth traveled her neck.

She had made quick work of his jacket and vest, something he might have found suspicious in other circumstances. With a clean tug, she pulled his shirt up over his head, curling into his bare chest with a simplicity he found almost painful.

"What are you called?" He muttered finally, not particularly interested. She stepped back without answering, gracing him with the slight upturn of her lips, the considering, distant smile that she might judge a good sword with, or a new firearm.

"Where do you sleep?" She asked gently, holding her hands out. "If you do sleep these days, Admiral Norrington."

The bedchamber was separated from his office only by a lopsided door that could never properly close. He guided her through it and she sat down on the creaking four-poster, pulling her boots off with a methodical expectancy that brought on a fresh wave of guilt.

"Elizabeth, I need—"

"Don't talk," she interrupted, her knees pressed together and her hands in her lap. He loved her then beyond _right_ or _honest_ or _genuine_. She reached for him. "Just come to me."

His boots, his wig, his belt left him and she kneeled up on the blankets to hold him, leaning back to let him caress her back, her sides, her breasts, her shoulders. She paused to let him strip off her shirt and kissed him in forgiveness.

"Hell," he gasped, watching the blue light from the window dip and rise along her side.

"Yes." She smiled, something in between anxiety and defiance, goading him each time he moved back, licking and stroking and cussing his hesitation until it crumbled in the pit of his stomach.

۞

Later, he asked again, "What are you called?"

And this time she replied, with a slow smile, "Mrs. Turner."

He nodded slightly against the angle where her neck met her shoulder. She had not been a virgin.

۞

The _Pearl_ and its crew escaped without incident that night, much to the mortification of the _Penitence_. As Lieutenant Barton later described to the Admiral, the cells in the brig had not been forced open. It was looked almost as though the pirates had simply walked out.

Their chief took this news quite calmly, much to Barton's relieved surprise. He was, as a rule, an ill-tempered man. Staring motionlessly out the windows of his quarters, all he said when the man had finished his report was, "Theirs is a much faster vessel. There would no sense in engaging pursuit."

A brief wave of the Admiral's hand told Barton he had been dismissed, but he stayed on. "Should we not make port and convey our information to offices, sir?"

The figure at the window glanced back at him in mild surprise. "Why ever would we?"

Feeling very simple, for reasons unknown, Barton stammered, "Er—protocol dictates—I thought that a pirate vessel—"

The Admiral turned a long hard look on his crewman, and the man fell silent immediately. After a pregnant pause, he purred, "We will not make port. We will not convey any information to offices. Is that perfectly clear?"

"Yes, sir—of course, sir!"

The man turned back to his window, and Barton made for the door. As he was about to step out, he stopped and opened his mouth.

With his back still turned, the Admiral started frostily, "If you are looking for friendly discussion, Lieutenant—"

"Yes, sir—that is, no sir, but I was only wondering…That is, if it my place to ask…is something on your mind, sir?"

Suddenly weary, Admiral Norrington turned to face his subordinate. His face was quite unusually kind. "A personal dilemma, Barton. Thank you for asking."

Flushed with pleasure at his name being remembered, the man inclined his head graciously. "Anything I could help with, sir?"

The admiral smiled. Barton was stunned.

"No, Lieutenant. Simply a matter of standards."

FIN

۞

**Author's Note**: Originally this was going to end at a totally different place and have something _totally_ different happen. But that just made my dear Norrington look too bad for me to bear. So this happened instead. Ta!


End file.
